By Rhona Zaid, Ph.D.

"In his cohesive approach to the title which draws from legal, historical, and cultural knowledge, Suconik presents compelling arguments for the rights of animals as opposed to animal rights. From the outset he accomplishes a difficult task, to create a  brief yet convenient historical overview of the principle philosophical  and ethical concepts, set within legal analogies, of continuing intolerance toward non human animals. 
      The book covers a wide variety of specific areas, including shelters, fur farming, and usage, vivisection, hunting, and circuses, among many others.
Building his case on a metaphor of the right to property, guaranteed, in theory, to each human under Western democracy, he demonstrates that non human animals have a right to the "property," i.e., the physical bodies that are their own. "Everything that constitutes the cat is the cats own property,"  Thus to deprive a cat of a limb, take his very life, or perhaps more importantly, his liberty, through useless and dangerous (to human and non human animals alike) vivisection experiments-or any other form of  abuse is an infringement of the cat's inalienable right to be a cat. By placing the argument in that context, Suconik erases all  whispers of the absurd from the debate, and offers a logical and objective formula to guarantee natural rights to all non human animals.                       

       Extending further the legal metaphor to the concept of justice, he draws a parallel between the (once)  practice of slavery in the nineteenth century, and the continuing violence and abuse toward nonhuman animals in the modern world. The analogy accurately reflects attitude. "...the realities of a world in which partisan (i.e., prejudiced)  justice is pandemic comprise, crime and cruelty to which we are habituated." Much as the abolitionists campaigned for a change in attitude, maintains the author, so must advocates of the rights of animals work to secure change.   

        He artfully juxtaposes the central moral and ethical issues of cruelty against all the (other) attendant social consequences that accompany the abuse of nonhuman animals. An excellent example is the chapter on fur "farming," in which he shows the practice as a principle contributor to  pollution and other ecological problems.  He successfully separates the issue from one of self-determination,  a ploy often used by fur trappers and "mongers,"  and their customers, whose selfishness exceeds any understanding of  justice or feelings of compassion. " It is not the legal right to wear fur that is at issue. The issue is the wrongfulness based on cruelty, suffering, and death entailed in the wearing of fur." Suconik who is clearly optimistic about humankind's ability  to learn from history,  imagines  a future where tyranny against its nonhuman brethren will no longer exist.  He reflect the vision shared by all who appreciate and respect the nonhuman animal kingdom."*
*Permission granted by The Civil Abolitionist.